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up vote 6 down vote favorite

I work with hidden files all the time, but I like an uncluttered desktop. It would be nice to make files like .DS_Store, and .localized invisible just on the Desktop.

Please note I am already aware of this trusty old terminal standby:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

Setting that flag to FALSE applies to everything in the system. My goal is to make an exception for the Desktop. Any suggestions?

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Do you save files on your desktop, or do you always keep it uncluttered? – Daniel Lawson♦ Oct 6 '11 at 21:54
It's generally uncluttered (no files). – Matthew Eppelsheimer Oct 6 '11 at 22:24

4 Answers

up vote 0 down vote

I would suggest trying out TotalFinder. Among many other features, it gives you a shortcut to show/hide invisible files in the Finder, but it does not show invisible files on the Desktop.

It's $18, but you also get tabbed and dual-pane Finder windows, and a Visor-like Finder window that you can pop up from any app.

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Thanks for the suggestion. But, if an application can do that, isn't there likely a command line interface to exploit? – Matthew Eppelsheimer Oct 7 '11 at 5:26
TotalFinder's option to show hidden files is independent of AppleShowAllFiles, so it doesn't necessarily indicate the same effect could be done via command line — but I certainly hope it can be. – joelseph Oct 7 '11 at 6:18
up vote 1 down vote

Although i'm unsure how to fulfill your exact request, I use this tiny widget which gives 1 button access to hide/show hidden files.

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Although this doesn't answer my question, it's still handy. Thanks! – Matthew Eppelsheimer Oct 7 '11 at 5:27
up vote 0 down vote 
chflags hidden ~/Desktop/hideme

This makes the file/folder invisible from the Finder and save/open panels. You can use {command}{shift}. to toggle visibility during save/open.

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Welcome to Ask Different! Can you explain what this does? Please give more details than an one-line Terminal command. Please take a look at the FAQs for more info. Thanks. – Nathan Greenstein♦ Oct 7 '11 at 2:42
I just tested this. If you enable Finder's "show all files" setting and run chflags hidden .DS_Store, nothing happens. – Graham Oct 7 '11 at 8:57
I confirm @Graham 's observation, it doesn't work on Mountain Lion. – Kheldar Nov 15 '12 at 11:37

We're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Don't just give a one-line answer: please explain why you're recommending it as a solution. Answers that don't explain anything will be deleted. See Good Subjective, Bad Subjective for more information.
up vote 1 down vote

My approach to this was to set Finder to generally show invisible files, and then explicitly set the invisible flag on files/folders on the Desktop which match certain criteria (.*, Icon, etc).

But this approach failed, as Finder then consequently not only shows files hidden because they start with a dot, but also those which have the invisible flag in their filesystem entry.

Nevertheless I post this idea to you, maybe it leads you to a solution.

# Set Finder to show all hidden files
# Only needs to be executed one time.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles ON

# Then explicitly flag certain files on the Desktop as invisible
# Run this at every login or at certain intervals (cron job)
/usr/bin/SetFile -a V ~/Desktop/.* ~/Desktop/Icon ~/Desktop/OtherPatternForHiding
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